The United States Department of Commerce is predicted to almost triple its anti-dumping duties on South Korean steel companies’ oil pipeline products as compared with last year despite the United States Court of International Trade’s recent ruling against its duties on oil country tubular goods imported from South Korea.
The department recently released a preliminary anti-dumping duty determination regarding the oil pipeline products, fixing this year’s duties at 59.09 percent, 26.47 percent and 41.53 percent for Nexteel, SeAH Steel and the others including Hyundai Steel, respectively.
As for Nexteel, which is showing the largest exports to the United States among those companies, the tariff rate skyrocketed from 18.3 percent in just one year due to the company’s low product prices in the United States. The tariff rate applied to SeAH Steel, the second-largest, rose from 17.81 percent to 26.47 percent. Likewise, that applied to Hyundai Steel rose from 18.77 percent to 41.53 percent.
The department releases preliminary and final anti-dumping duty determinations by product each year in view of the difference between the product’s prices in its source country and export destination, subsidies in the former, and other factors. The department fixes tariff rates by looking into the largest and second-largest exporters and applies the average to the others. The preliminary determination released this time is related to those exported between December 2016 and November 2017 and the final determination for the products is scheduled for July this year.